I'm so sick of this story. Can we just let it play out in the courts/congress. What more is there to say?
To the contrary, without vigorous public debate and widespread discussion by all of us (since
all of us will be affected), deliberate and intentional weakening of the security protocols protecting our most private data will be swiftly enacted by the FED, and give authorities
the world over the additional desperately wanted 'teeth' they need in their existing search and seize powers, while such weakening of encryption will naturally in short order also be abused by the criminal element in society for all sorts of misuse and massive defrauding of financial institutions and ordinary citizens while creating potential financial and security havoc for people the world over.
Even worse, once weakening of data security through 'backdoors' becomes a reality, there's no guarantee unfriendly or worse, unstable regimes won't be using any newly-found intel to infiltrate and/or destabilize civilized societies.
In addition, working back from the premise these measures are needed to combat terrorism or crime in general, it would seem obvious that once criminals know their private conversations such as texts and messages are subject to surreptitious interception, they will instantly cease using those methods of communication and find alternative ways of planning their evil deeds, all the while leaving ordinary people having (in futility) ceded more of their privacy and ultimately freedom, under the guise of increased security.
I believe this issue deserves and needs vigorous public discourse; imho, as a society we have given up enough privacy since the onset of the 'digital revolution'.
